


Revenant

by tastewithouttalent



Category: 91 Days (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Tragedy, Blood and Violence, Guns, Kissing, M/M, Murder, Not A Fix-It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-09 09:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14713655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "It doesn’t seem right, that Angelo should be so distant and yet still feel the bleeding ache of his destroyed heart so keenly against the inside of his ribcage." Angelo does what he has to do, and Corteo understand.





	Revenant

The gun is heavy in Angelo’s hand.

He can feel the weight of the door swinging shut behind him as if it’s the bars of a prison cell settling into place. The barrier is heavy, made of solid wood that resists movement for all that the hinges are oiled to obedience; the sound it makes as it closes on him is like a gunshot, as if the impact of the door falling shut is the dull boom of a pistol firing a round through the fragile shell of his chest.

Angelo thinks that might be less painful than the reality.

It’s hard to move forward. As long as he stays still on the other side of the room he feels he can hold time as fixed, can lock himself in place and buy another moment of hesitation, another heartbeat of existence. But time is passing, he knows that too well when he has counted every moment of the last seven years as torture, and the force that has borne him forward to this point moves him like clockwork now, lifting his feet and dragging them forward over the distance to the chair on the other side of the room, to the face he can’t bring himself to see, the smile he can’t stand to acknowledge.

“Why did you come back?” Angelo’s voice echoes in his ears, chasing itself back into the chasm of his consciousness; he feels cold, like his blood is freezing in his veins, like his hearing is icing over into dull, resistless winter. It doesn’t seem right, that he should be so distant and yet still feel the bleeding ache of his destroyed heart so keenly against the inside of his ribcage.

There’s a huff of a breath, the give of not-quite a laugh. Angelo knows it as well as he knows the sound of his own breathing, even after all these years apart. “Ganzo said that you were in danger.”

Angelo’s jaw tightens, flexing hard like he can shatter the steel of reality around him, like he can stop the steam-engine strength of the future coming for him. His teeth ache, his fingers clench against the handle of the gun in his hand. The weight is unbearable; he can feel every loaded bullet like a lead weight to pull him down under the surface of some endless, midnight-black river.

“But even if he hadn’t.” Corteo’s voice is so gentle, as soft as if he’s speaking to the child Angelo used to be, to the boys they once were together. Angelo can’t lift his head to see the expression on his face. “It would end up the same way. Either way, I’d end up…”

He doesn’t finish speaking. Angelo doesn’t need to hear it anyway. He’s never needed words, not with Corteo. He can see the ending coming for them just as clearly.

Corteo takes a breath. Angelo can hear the intent on it, the effort to collect himself to a new topic. “You can use that gun to clear up their suspicion of you.” It’s not fair, how calm his voice sounds, how steady he seems sitting in that chair across from Angelo: Corteo has always been afraid, has always been uncertain, and now his voice is even, steady as steel, certain as his own doom, and it’s Angelo’s fingers going numb in their effort to bear the impossible weight of the gun hanging at his side. “No one will get in your way after that.”

Angelo stares at the pattern of the carpet under his shoes. His heart isn’t racing, his blood isn’t burning; he feels like he’s going slow, like he’s swimming through the slush of a frozen river, like all his senses are blurring out of focus as the ice steals over him to lock him into his inevitable end. “I am here to take revenge.” The words taste like metal on his tongue, like bloodstained bullets dragging down his throat to weight him to stillness where he stands. “It’s not done yet.”

Corteo shifts in the chair. Angelo can hear the give of the leather, can see the relaxation in Corteo’s shoulders without looking up to view him. “It’s been a crazy ride, hasn’t it? Has it really only been three months since you came back to this town?” There’s tenderness there, nostalgia sweet as sugar, with a burn like the ache of alcohol at the back of Angelo’s throat. “But I’m glad I got to see you again.”

Angelo’s throat works. He’s choking on his breath, drowning on the spill of that endless water closing over the surface of his head; or maybe he’s been under all this time, maybe that ache in him is at the sight of Corteo’s last breath giving way from his lips to spill and float towards the glassed-over ice of the river he’s sunk them in. He lifts his head, raises his gaze to Corteo’s: and Corteo is watching him, his eyes soft as his mouth, a smile curving tender at the shape of his lips as he gazes at Angelo in front of him. There’s no fear in his face, no tremor in the weight of his hands; Angelo has never seen him look so steady, has never seen him so unafraid. Angelo gazes into the familiar dark of those eyes, staring at the unabashed affection in Corteo’s face; and he’s stumbling forward on clumsy legs, struggling over the distance as he once struggled through snow in a desperate effort for his life. His movements are awkward, he trips and falls as he draws up to the chair Corteo is sitting in: or perhaps it’s his own strength finally giving way as his certainty shudders under this too-much pressure, as the burdens of his determined path forward crush down to force him to his knees, to beg for impossible forgiveness from this one thing he still has left to himself, this last fragment of his humanity smiling at him with understanding in his eyes and affection at his lips.

“Why?” Angelo rasps. His voice is ice in his throat, choking him even as he forces the word past his lips. His hand -- the empty hand -- comes up, reaches out. His fingers flutter into Corteo’s hair to urge the loose waves back from the other’s face; Corteo’s lashes dip heavy as velvet, Corteo’s head cants to the side to cradle his cheek against Angelo’s touch. Angelo has never felt pain like what he feels in this moment, as his fingers slide to weight the back of Corteo’s neck, as his loaded hand rises to bear up the burden he has spent seven years teaching himself to carry. He wishes he were the desperate child he once was for the excuse it would give him to let the weight in his hold fall from his fingers instead of coming up and rising between them to press the barrel of the gun to the white of Corteo’s carefully-buttoned shirt. “Why did you come back?”

Corteo’s eyes melt to softness, his smile spreads affection over his face. “Angelo,” he breathes, his voice gentle as a touch, warm as a promise, and Angelo would swear he can feel his heart tearing open, can feel his blood soaking hot through the front of his shirt as his palm braces at the back of Corteo’s neck and his grip tightens on the handle of the gun. Corteo’s hand comes up to the space between them; Angelo doesn’t need to turn his head to see the motion of his fingers curling down to leave his pinky upraised, to see the gesture familiar and warm as the flicker of candlelight. “Because we’re…”

Angelo struggles for a breath. The air chokes him, it fills his lungs with time, with inevitability, stretches the moment past what this single heartbeat can bear; and he leans forward, his hand tightening at the back of Corteo’s head as he tips his own and rocks forward to press his lips close against Corteo’s smile. Corteo doesn’t protest, doesn’t flinch back or startle at the contact: he just gives way, his lashes dropping over his eyes as his upraised hand comes down to ghost against Angelo’s shoulder, to touch a fingertip just against the side of Angelo’s neck. Angelo braces his grip steady, holding Corteo still as if to speak with his touch the words he won’t get to say, as if to carry at his mouth the burden of the years they won’t have together; and then he sets his finger against the trigger, and he pulls back against the too-little resistance.

Angelo can feel the gun jerk between them, can feel the bruise-blow of the recoil slam against his chest and jolt at his wrist more clearly than he hears the deafening explosion of the shot. Corteo barely moves; there’s a jolt that runs through him, a brief, instinctive tension at the injury, but he lets it go almost at once, giving way to the press of Angelo’s mouth against his as readily as if nothing has happened at all. For a minute there’s still the weight of that touch against his neck, for a breath of time Corteo’s mouth is still pressing flush to Angelo’s own: and then Corteo’s strength melts out of him, his hand falls away, and Angelo can feel the weight of Corteo’s head go slack against the support of his hand. He lingers for a moment, feeling the heat drain from his blood in time with Corteo’s, willing himself to go to ice as Corteo slumps heavy into the chair before him; until finally he pulls the gun back from the slow-spreading crimson at Corteo’s chest, and pulls himself away from the fading warmth of Corteo’s body, and rocks back onto his knees before the other.

Corteo looks peaceful. But for the blossom of red spilling across his chest he could be asleep, maybe, could have slid into death by the lull of unconsciousness instead of the violence of injury. His hand is hanging slack over the arm of the chair; Angelo can still feel the heat of Corteo’s touch at the side of his neck, fading like the smoke from a snuffed-out candle.

“Because we’re brothers,” Angelo says, speaking carefully and clearly to finish the last of Corteo’s unvoiced sentence. “Right?” He stares at Corteo for a moment: the fall of his hair, the dark of his lashes, the familiar shape of his mouth. There’s a pressure in his throat, tight as tears swelling to choke him with their force: but he’s welcomed the cold into him now, there’s no heat left for him to spill over his cheeks even for this. All he can find is certainty, the cold iron of absolute determination that has borne him forward all this time, and when he smiles it’s with all his softness stripped free to show nothing but the skeleton beneath.

“I’ll see you soon,” Angelo says. “Corteo.” And he gets to his feet, and he turns to walk out of the room, and towards what yet remains to be done.

He doesn’t look back at the shattered wreckage of his heart behind him.


End file.
